A Shin Hikari, a Group 1 winner in Hong Kong last December, assumed the role of favorite for the $1.09 million Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot on June 15 with an emphatic win in Tuesday’s $280,000 Prix d’Ispahan at Chantilly Racecourse in France.
Nine group or graded stakes winners, including New Bay, the winner of the Group 1 French Derby in 2015 and Mondialiste, the winner of the Grade 1 Woodbine Mile last September, comprise the field for Tuesday’s $280,000 Prix d’Ispahan at Chantilly Racecourse in France.
Jet Setting, a filly purchased for approximately $17,400 last fall, won Sunday’s $336,300 Irish 1000 Guineas over 4-11 favorite Minding at The Curragh. The win gave trainer Adrian Keatley his first Group 1 win in his third year of training.
Awtaad rolled down the outside of a soggy Curragh course and won the Group 1 Irish 2000 Guineas by 2 1/2 lengths on Saturday.
Minding, the winner of the English 1000 Guineas earlier this month, and Found, who won the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Keeneland last October, will be favored to win Group 1 races at The Curragh in Ireland on Sunday.
Trainer Aidan O’Brien will have four chances to win his 11th Irish 2000 Guineas on Saturday at The Curragh, but the race favorite, Galileo Gold, comes from the yard of trainer Hugo Palmer.
A month after beating maidens in Ireland, The Gurhka won his first stakes in Sunday’s Group 1 French 2000 Guineas at Deauville, France. The victory may lead to a start in the English Derby at Epsom Downs for The Gurhka, a colt by Galileo.
Belardo went winless in seven starts in 2015 but won for the second time in three races this year while capturing his first Group 1 since the Dewhurst in October 2014 when he beat Euro Charline by one length in the J.T. Lockinge Stakes on Saturday at Newbury in England.
The French 3-year-olds Come Alive and Zarak are on the exact same career path. Sunday, they will make their first starts in stakes as leading contenders in the French 1000 and 2000 Guineas at Deauville.
Nyquist, on the strength of his Kentucky Derby win, is tied for the third highest-rated Thoroughbred in the world in the latest edition of the World Thoroughbred Rankings released Thursday.
